Procrastination

I think we can all relate to this, I mean - what are you really doing right now?

Giant Panda Live @ Castaways Tonight

For those of you who live in the I-town area, I strongly encourage you to come check out Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad (GPGDS) tonight at Castaways (9pm). For more about GPGDS and to hear some tracks - check out the side bar or the music player at the bottom of the page.

Taking advantage of the opportunity

Yesterday I finally got around to reading an article from the Feb. 1 NYT Magazine called “The Big Fix,” which outlined how the stimulus bill should be used. It was actually good timing because yesterday I also read the detailed outline of the stimulus package that was signed by President Obama on Tuesday.

I was struck by how closely the stimulus package adheres to the plan put forth in the article: that the bill should be used to fix problems that have been festering due to lack of political will to change them (among other reasons) – particularly in the areas of healthcare, research, education, and infrastructure – and that careful attention must be paid to finding a balance between short-term investments with immediate returns and long-term investments for the future.

Here are some snippets from the article:

Washington won’t merely be given the task of pulling the economy out of the immediate crisis. It will also have to figure out how to put the American economy on a more sustainable path — to help it achieve fast, broadly shared growth and do so without the benefit of a bubble. Obama said as much in his inauguration speech when he pledged to overhaul Washington’s approach to education, health care, science and infrastructure, all in an effort to “lay a new foundation for growth.”

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Emanuel said. “What I mean by that is that it’s an opportunity to do things you could not do before.”

“Things we had postponed for too long, that were long term, are now immediate and must be dealt with,” Emanuel said in November…the fact that the economy appears to be mired in its worst recession in a generation may well allow the administration to confront problems that have festered for years.

…a moment when there are millions of people who are unemployed, when the federal government can borrow money over the long term at under 3 percent and when we face long-run fiscal problems is also a moment of great opportunity to make investments in the future of the country that have lagged for a long time.

As a country we have been spending too much on the present and not enough on the future. We have been consuming rather than investing. We’re suffering from investment-deficit disorder.

According to the article, spending on future investments such as healthcare, infrastructure, and future technologies has dropped from 7% of the national GDP to 4% GDP in the last 50 years, and private industry doesn’t spend much because the benefits are often societal rather than financial - and when they are financial, often only a fraction is returned to the investor.

Here are some highlights from the stimulus outline:

*Over $30 billion to transform the nation’s energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology
*$17.7 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.
*$16.5 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings
*$15 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation
*$7.2 billion to expand broadband internet access so businesses in rural and other underserved areas can link up to the global economy
*$5 billion to weatherize modest-income homes

detailed summary (pdf)

NEXT STEP: CAP-AND-TRADE?

It’s a harder idea to sell, but If we’re serious about stimulating green innovations, it’s going to have to be done. This is what the article had to say:

Various analyses of Obama’s cap-and-trade plan…suggest that after it is fully implemented, it would cost less than 1 percent of gross domestic product a year, or about $100 billion in today’s terms. That cost is entirely manageable. But it’s still a cost.

Or perhaps we should think of it as an investment. Like so much in the economy, our energy policy has been geared toward the short term. Inexpensive energy made daily life easier and less expensive for all of us. Building a green economy, on the other hand, will require some sacrifice. In the end, that sacrifice should pay a handsome return in the form of icecaps that don’t melt and droughts that don’t happen — events with costs of their own. Over time, the direct economic costs of a new energy policy may also fall. A cap-and-trade program will create incentives for the private sector to invest in alternative energy, which will lead to innovations and lower prices. Some of the new clean-energy spending, meanwhile, really will replace money now flowing overseas and create jobs here.

But all those benefits will come later. The costs will come sooner, which is a big reason we do not already have a green economy — or an investment economy.

We've got a long road ahead, but it's good to know we finally have someone at the reins who makes rational decisions that are based on scientific facts and are for the greater good.

The Solution to Our Economic Problems

This is pure comedy, so if you're looking for a serious solution - sorry!

What?!?!

I have to say, I'm a sucker for random comedy - and this is about as random as it gets:

But there's nothing we can do about it...

Tamino, in a recent post on his/her blog Open Mind titled "The Audacity of Hope," gave this great response to the ridiculous sentiment:

...I have a message for every nay-sayer and advocate of “there’s nothing we can do about it.” I refuse to resign. I do not accept the inevitability of failure. But the way I feel right now, it takes a lot of audacity to be hopeful.

I accept that global warming is going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people. But I will allow my intellect to overrule my anger because it knows that what we do does make a difference. The more we change for the better, the better the future will be. Although the future is not likely to be good, there’s no excuse for not doing what we can to prevent its being worse.

If you don’t want to do anything about global warming … get the hell out of the way of those of us who do.

And we're not just talking about climate change, this is a universal truth that applies to everything. One person CAN make a difference, and every little bit helps!

Malicious Intent

We’ve all had professors we thought were mean, but was it their intention? Here’s proof that at least one professor (not from Cornell, in case you were wondering) intentionally alienates students when teaching evolution to those who believe in creationism:

I make an explicit statement on day one that creationism would not be mentioned ever in this classroom. Then, for the rest of the semester, I mention creationism, always as an aside, always snarkily, always with disdain, always with humor, so an increasingly large number of students join in with uproarious laughter at the expense of the increasingly smaller and smaller number of "out" creationist. In other words, I invoke the ugly Weapon of Mass Destruction known as peer pressure.

Link to source

When I first read this I actually laughed out loud – but it’s really not that funny when I think about it. I mean, that's not cool.

And on the topic of teaching evolution, there are better (and probably more effective) ways to deal with the issue. In my humble opinion, this is the best way to deal with students who are hesitant to believe in evolution because it conflicts with their belief in creationism: just make it fit. In other words, don’t try to undermine their religion, simply point out that most of the Bible is not meant to be taken literally. Many scientists who retain their faith are able to reconcile the conflict between creationism and evolution by interpreting each day of the creation as a period in time rather than a strict 24-hour day. Easy solution. No one gets hurt.

A Glimpse Into The Future?...Masdar City

Why is it that the countries with the oil are the ones who are taking the biggest steps toward initiating research on alternative energy and sustainable living? Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City is a 2.3-square-mile state of the art complex that should be up and running by 2016. The city will house 40,000 people working on next-generation energy technologies, and will serve as a "manifesto for sustainable living" - NO CARS (click the picture to the right to find out more), 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY, LOCAL AGRI- CULTURE, WASTE FULLY RECYCLED - AND ALL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT! Why can't a project like this be a part of the stimulus plan? It would certainly create a lot of jobs and put the US in the forefront of the green revolution - which may determine the international balance of power for generations to come. So I say, why not turn some of those wasteful golf courses in the South West into similar model cities for sustainability? Check out the promotional video below for a virtual tour - IT IS SIMPLY AMAZING! Whether or not their goals are realistic remains to be seen, but at least they have goals! (The video quality is lacking a little to be desired, but if you go to the actual site, you can find a much higher quality version)

Obama Poster Debate

We talked about it in class, so I figured I'd post this debate on the Obama poster dispute from The Colbert Report. Both sides make good points, and funny as always. Enjoy!

Steven Pinker On The Colbert Report

Below find two interviews with the author of The Stuff Of Thought and an essay, "My Genome, My Self," that I blogged about recently (Click HERE or picture above to link to post). You should definitely check them out, both hilarious and informative.

Am I really that naive?

I would like to think that I am not a naive person, but maybe I am. I went to one of the best public high schools in the country, and for some reason I believed my teachers were above just skipping over unpleasant parts of US history - but apparently I was wrong. All I remember being taught about the 1920-1940’s in the US is regarding the huge wave of immigration, industrialization, prohibition, the start of the feminist movement, and I’m sure some more or less significant stuff – but what was blatantly omitted was US involvement in the eugenics movement (Nazi Germany sure got its fair coverage). Furthermore, as a genetics major at Cornell, you would think eugenics would have come up as an example of a misuse of genetics in at least one of my classes, but surprisingly it has not.


In case you don’t know, eugenics is the social philosophy that genetic principles can be used for the improvement of human populations (see poster/advertisement above). Although eugenics is most often associated with Nazi Germany and the holocaust, few people talk about the more than 60,000 people that were forcibly sterilized in the US between 1920-1940 - because they were carriers of supposed genes for traits such as “pauperism” and “feeblemindedness.” Similar numbers were sterilized in Canada and Sweden, and sterilization programs continued into the 1970’s in all three countries. The movement was so popular in the US that state fairs during the period often had eugenics exhibits in which families could undergo eugenic evaluation for the “fittest family” competition, held in the “human stock” sections.

How could such an atrocity have been ignored in all my high school history classes. It was possibly the worst case of mass discrimination in US history, and something that we all can, and should, learn from. And if you think eugenics is a problem of the past, you’re wrong. As recently as 1995, China passed a law requiring that couples with unspecified genetic diseases “considered to be inappropriate for childbearing” can get married only if both agree to practice long-term contraception or to be sterilized. Absolutely ridiculous, and a perfect example of why we all need to be taught the history of eugenics - so we can try to avoid repeating such a regrettable period in history.

SOURCES
Kelves (1999) Eugenics and human rights. BMJ 319:435–438
Beardsley (1997) China Syndrome Sci Am. 276:33-34

Chromatic Cognition

Ravi Mehta and Juliet Zhu describe the effects of color on human cognition in a new study published on February 5th. The study began with tests designed to measure avoidance and attraction. Students vehemently avoided red and were strongly attracted to blue. In a follow-up experiment, test subjects given attention-demanding tasks did best when given a red background, and when asked to be creative, they responded best to blue. Below is a graphic showing the results of the study from a The New York Times article about the findings (click here to link to article, click image to enlarge).


Previous research on the cognitive effects of the color red have provided mixed results. Red has been linked to cognitive impairment on IQ tests, but also to improvement on low-demand tasks and clerical work. Red has also been shown to attract people to food and enhance sexual arousal. This study strengthens the link between red and an increase in cognitive ability. When asked to explain why red might be linked to concentration, and blue to creativity, Zhu offered this explaination,

Think about red, and what comes to mind: stop lights, stop signs, danger, ambulances - people want to avoid those things, and that's why they do better on detail-oriented tasks. Blue is the color of the sky, the ocean, safety - when their environment is safe, people are more explorative.

Interestingly, creativity has apparently not been given much consideration in past studies examining the effects of color on cognition. Furthermore, the strength of the link between blue and creativity in this study is far from solid. The score for creativity was not exactly quantitative; when asked to come up with as many creative uses for bricks as possible, the red group actually came up with the same number of responses, suggestions from the blue group were merely graded by a panel of judges to be more creative - so take that result with a grain of salt. The link between red and concentration is much stronger, and supports many previous studies.

As for the implications, Zhu suggests people engaged in creative tasks surround themselves with blue, and people trying to focus should forget about energy drinks, and surround themselves with red (hey look at that, my background is red!). The study also points to the possible consequences associated with unintentional uses of color. According to Stony Brook University psychologist Markus Meier, co-author of a conflicting study that linked red to drops on IQ test scores,

In our university, some professors use different color sheets for different groups during exams…Using them in an unthinking way could produce bad results for some students, and good for others.

It really makes you think about other ways in which colors may be impacting your life - without your knowledge!

SOURCES

Mehta, R and Zhu, J. 2009. "Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances." Science, Vol. 324, Issue 5915.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/science/06color.html?